London: Britain’s finance industry has reluctantly given up on efforts to keep full access to the European Union after Brexit and is pushing instead for a more limited trade deal that would potentially exclude some financial products.
Banks, insurers and asset managers have concluded there is no realistic chance of maintaining full passporting rights after Brexit that would allow them to sell all their services across the 28-nation bloc from Britain.
TheCityUK, the country’s most powerful financial lobby group, instead called on Thursday for limited market access for some finance sectors based on a pact in which Britain and the EU would accept each other’s rules.
Such an “equivalence” arrangement would keep the door open for cross-border trading of stocks and bonds, and sales of certain other products.
TheCityUK document is the first attempt to condense the industry’s priorities after months of conflicting lobbying and comes just two months before Britain plans EU divorce talks.
“I am confident that this represents in broad shape the key priorities for the industry,” TheCityUK Chief Executive Officer Miles Celic told Reuters.
“There are a multiple number of documents out there of stuff at significant length. So there was a sense among our membership to filter down what the key asks were into a single place.” The future of London as Europe’s financial centre is one of the biggest issues in Brexit talks because it is Britain’s largest export sector and biggest source of corporate tax revenue.
